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Stuffed Crabs

Stuffed crabs filled with seasoned crab meat, onion, spices, breadcrumbs, and bechamel sauce, baked until heated through.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Crabs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crab

  1. Cook the crabs in boiling water for 20 minutes.

  2. Let them cool.

  3. Cut the crabs in half and clean the shells.

  4. Set the shells aside.

  5. Remove the meat from the crabs and chop it finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 ounces of butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Gradually add 1 pint of milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

  4. Add the chopped onion and cook until soft.

  5. Stir in the crab meat, cayenne pepper, mustard, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  6. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

  7. Add the breadcrumbs.

  8. Thicken the sauce with 2 beaten egg yolks.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the cleaned crab shells with the mixture.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crab meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and bind the filling as they set with heat.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling body and a softer texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into the béchamel base.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the béchamel that carries the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in the sauce base.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the sauce is too hot when they are added they can scramble into lumps. Stir them in off the heat or over low heat, and keep stirring so the filling stays smooth and binds properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, egg, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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